Jan 13, 2021 8:05:20 GMT
sophamy1
Brand New Budgie
Posts: 6
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Post by sophamy1 on Jan 13, 2021 8:20:13 GMT
Hi, So maybe like 2 months ago I my friend found a lost adult budgie and we put up ads for weeks but nobody claimed him so I decided to take him in. I have never had a bird before and I have no experience with bird training. When we first got him he was very flighty and scared but in a few days he settled down a lot. After like two days I trained him to step up onto a stick, I use this to get him out of his cage and then back in. A week or two later he was on my shoulder or my head and I could walk around the house with him. A few weeks ago he started to step up onto my finger but he only does this if he is already on the stick I am holding. Maybe like a week ago he was very comfortable with me but still maybe a little scared. He doesn't really take treats from me so it is very hard to train him, he only recently started eating millet that I am holding. The problem is he was very lonely (we think he was an aviary bird before we got him) so yesterday we bought him a baby budgie so he could have a friend. Btw our first Budgie's name is Ollie and the new budgie's name is Pep. Ollie and Pep hit it off really quickly, like in the first day, they love each other. They follow each other around, kiss, groom each other and eat together. Now we got Pep from a pet shop so he was not hand raised, ever since we brought him home, Ollie has gone backwards in his training, he doesn't want to leave his cage and he doesn't seem to trust us as much anymore. I cant even get near either one of them because if one moves away the other will follow. I cant even get Pep to step up onto a stick. I don't know what to do, none of them will take treats from me. Please if anyone could help me or give me some advice it would be much appreciated.
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May 4, 2024 7:13:40 GMT
Deleted
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2021 9:03:36 GMT
Welcome to the forum. First off, it's too late now but your baby budgie should have been quarantined in a separate room for a month before being introduced to your resident bird to make sure he hadn't brought any illnesses with him. This is true for all pet species. There was a time that my family bought a new fish and put it straight into a pond containing 30 other fish and only 1 survived. It was horrific and I never want anyone to go through that. So what's been done can't be undone but it's worth remembering for the future. Budgies don't tend to be hand-raised for the most part, unlike larger bird species. There are exceptions but usually even if you buy direct from a breeder the parents will have done the work, though they may have been handled more. Now that your budgies have each other for company you'll need to find something else that you can bribe them with, which may take time. I've had two of mine for 6 months and they'll still move away if I'm not obviously offering millet, and my eldest who I had as a single bird for 8 years tends to interact very much on his terms. You can find a lot of tips and advice in some of the taming threads on the forum. The main bit being patience and persistence. Just putting your hand inside the cage door and leaving it there for 5-10 minutes whilst you chat to them can help them gradually feel that your hand is less of a threat. Some people will read to their birds. Try to establish a routine so that they know what to expect. You'll be working very much at their pace. Now that you have a curious youngster is also a good time to start offering fresh vegetables if you're not already. There's a list of safe foods in the Feeding forum. Others will come along with more and more detailed advice than me. And probably also requests for pictures. We love pictures.
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Jan 13, 2021 8:05:20 GMT
sophamy1
Brand New Budgie
Posts: 6
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Post by sophamy1 on Jan 13, 2021 9:39:17 GMT
Thank you for your advice, I did know about quarantining new birds but I didn't know it was for illnesses and I didn't realise it was meant to be for that long, also I only have one cage. Also I forgot to mention that Ollie doesn't always tolerate me, sometimes he kinda likes me, other times he's back to being stubborn and it's like he's forgotten all the nice stuff we've done together. Also when I said he recently started eating millet I'm holding, it is usually a really long piece of millet and my hand is at the very end of it and I usually have to hold it in front of him for like 5 mins before he'll nibble it but I know he loves millet cause if I leave some in his cage he'll eat it all the time. He also still steps away from my hand if its on the outside of the cage near him.
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May 4, 2024 7:13:40 GMT
Deleted
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2021 9:48:38 GMT
That's a good start with the millet. It doesn't matter if the piece if long now or if it takes him a while, those things can gradually get shorter.
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Jan 13, 2021 8:05:20 GMT
sophamy1
Brand New Budgie
Posts: 6
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Post by sophamy1 on Jan 13, 2021 10:35:07 GMT
Do you have any advice for changing their diet? They currently eat this seed mix that was given to me from my friend when she dropped him off at my house (they used to have a budgie but he died last year and they still weren't ready for another bird). I noticed the seed mix has millet in it, so when I give him millet its not really that exciting for him because he eats it everyday in his food. I've tried putting a variety of fruits in his bowl as well but he doesn't eat them, the only other thing he likes is spinach. Do you know any good food mix I could give him that's maybe healthier and is there a specific way I am meant to change their diet?
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Jan 13, 2021 8:05:20 GMT
sophamy1
Brand New Budgie
Posts: 6
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Post by sophamy1 on Jan 13, 2021 10:45:19 GMT
They aren't very good photos, but aren't they cute?! Ollie is the blue one and Pep is the little baby yellow and green one.
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May 4, 2024 7:13:40 GMT
Deleted
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2021 11:42:31 GMT
They're beautiful! You may want to consider a new cage when you can save up for one, just because round cages (which yours appears to be but I might be wrong) can sometimes be a cause of mental stress for birds. Of course you'll be the best judge of your own birds. Spinach is an excellent start. You don't want to offer that in too much quantity every day. If you have a garden or somewhere that isn't sprayed with pesticides then they might try nibbling on some grass. They seem to quite like basil, if you hang up a wet bunch they may even bathe with it. You can also try eating healthy foods in front of them to show them it's food. Vegetables are better than fruit due to the sugar content. The only real way is to keep putting the food in and around the cage until they decide to try it. You may have to try offering chunks and chopped because sometimes they have preferences, or pegged up versus hanging on a blunt skewer. Mine have millet seeds in their diet but still all go wild for millet spray. But if you're wanting to convert them into a pellet diet then yellowfacedviolet can probably offer you some advice. I've never tried, so I only know the theory of adding some pellets to their seed pot and gradually increasing the amount of pellet to seed ratio. Which reminds me on an experiment my lecturer at uni carried out with wild birds and pastry flakes. So we talk about how blue budgies aren't really seen in the wild because if one developed then they'd be easily spotted and picked off by a predator, but sometimes you get novel appearances of insects which don't get eaten and then reproduce and increase in number. This is dietary wariness. So my lecturer demonstrated this by putting out pastry flakes for the wild birds. The birds would eat them. So then they put out a single green pastry flake (food dyed) amongst the plain. The birds avoided the green one, so the green on was then able to 'reproduce' and more green flakes appeared. Eventually, the birds decided to risk eating the green flakes because they were as numerous as the plain. The same then occurred when they added red flakes to the mix. Just a random sciency aside.
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Jan 13, 2021 8:05:20 GMT
sophamy1
Brand New Budgie
Posts: 6
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Post by sophamy1 on Jan 13, 2021 12:26:35 GMT
We are actually currently looking for a new cage for them, especially now that we have two budgies. We are looking for a bigger one that is rectangular and wider rather than tall. Because the one we currently have is a vertical, round cage its like a metre tall and they do explore it quite a bit but we think it would be better for them to be able to fly like horizontally.
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Post by ladybird on Jan 13, 2021 13:56:06 GMT
I am so pleased you are getting them a new cage that one is definitely not suitable. They are beautiful budgies and lucky to have such a caring owner...
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Post by yellowfacedviolet on Jan 14, 2021 1:04:19 GMT
But if you're wanting to convert them into a pellet diet then yellowfacedviolet can probably offer you some advice. I've never tried, so I only know the theory of adding some pellets to their seed pot and gradually increasing the amount of pellet to seed ratio.
The fact that your budgie already likes spinach and recognizes it as food is good. It should be relatively easy to introduce other veggies.
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Post by Hezz on Jan 14, 2021 1:39:18 GMT
I think you will find that Pep is a hen, but a better photo may confirm that. Quarantine is also a great time to get some training practices in place, as well as separation for health reasons. Now that both birds are together those early sessions are not going to happen.
Where do you live? Seeding grasses from clean, unsprayed paddocks, fields etc are the best fresh food you can offer your birds and most budgies immediately recognise it as food, unlike most other human fresh foods that we offer them. Even weeds from your own garden, dandelion etc, are good for them. Bundle a heap of different ones together and hang them in the cage for the birds to discover. If it is hot, wet the grass until it is dripping and you’ll possibly find that they will rub themselves over the wet leaves for a ... “bird bath”. If you can’t source free grass, you can buy grass growing kits, apparently.
For training, you are going to have to go back to the very beginning and take it slowly, having them accept your hand in the cage, always offering treats when you go visiting their cage, getting them both stepping up every time you ask will be the next step after that, but none of this can be rushed. While it may seem painfully slow, it is much better to give them plenty of time to learn to trust you, rather than pushing too fast and destroying any trust that may have started to develop.
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Jan 13, 2021 8:05:20 GMT
sophamy1
Brand New Budgie
Posts: 6
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Post by sophamy1 on Jan 14, 2021 23:24:35 GMT
oh no, the pet shop must have mixed them up. We didn't want a female because we don't want them to breed. We bought Pep from the Male cage in the pet shop.
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Post by Hezz on Jan 15, 2021 6:02:30 GMT
Don’t provide anything that can be construed as a nesting site, and most likely there won’t be an issue, but a front on photo of your bird’s face rather than a side view with the face slightly turned away will help determine more definitely the bird’s gender.
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